Family and Education

bap. 6 Feb. 1716, o.s. of Hugh Montgomery by Barbara, da. of George Metham of North Cave.  educ. Trinity Hall, Camb. 1734; I. Temple 1734; Académie Royale, Paris. unm., 1 illegit. s. (by the notorious Mrs. Bellamy).  suc. uncle Philip Metham of North Cave 1732 and took name of Metham.  Kntd. 10 Apr. 1756.

Offices Held

Clerk of the wardrobe Mar. 1766-Mar. 1782.

Biography

Metham’s estates were near Hull, and in 1757 with the support of the mayor and of Administration he successfully contested the borough. On 26 July, three weeks after the election, Lord Dupplin wrote to Newcastle:1 ‘Sir George Metham will come to town with Lord Rockingham, with no other view and upon no other business than to declare to your Grace the just sense he has of your favours.’ In 1761 he was returned unopposed. He voted against the peace preliminaries, December 1762, opposed Grenville’s Administration, and was classed by Newcastle, 10 May 1764, as a ‘sure friend’. On 7 July 1765, while the Rockingham Administration was being formed, Newcastle wrote:2

The Duke of Newcastle has been strongly applied to by Sir George Metham’s friends. Sir George is represented to be in very necessitous circumstances, and it is said that he will have a difficulty to be re-chose at Hull. Sir George Metham’s friends therefore wish he might have the vacant commission in the Excise.

That place had been already earmarked by Newcastle. However, in writing to Rockingham on 12 July about ‘gentlemen of the House of Commons not yet named to any office’, he included ‘your friend’ Metham amongst the ‘most material’, suggesting him for the Board of Green Cloth, a place worth £1,000 p.a. and invariably held by a Member of Parliament.3 But Metham received no appointment till March 1766 when he was made clerk of the wardrobe (worth only £300 p.a.), which vacated his seat. He did not stand again for Parliament.

Only one speech by him is reported—stating Hull’s case in a dispute about a Yorkshire turnpike.4

Metham died 2 Mar. 1793.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

• 1. Add. 32872, f. 344.
• 2. Add. 32967, f. 274.
• 3. Ibid. f. 349.
• 4. 2 Mar. 1764, Harris’s ‘Debates’.